


everything I hold dear resides in those eyes

by brookethenerd



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Guys Being Guys, Just Dudes Being Dudes, Light Angst, M/M, but that day is not today, one day ill write longer things, special appearance by king
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 17:28:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17492171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookethenerd/pseuds/brookethenerd
Summary: Neil signs with a team across the country, and all that's left to do is tell Andrew(aka Neil realizes that leaving doesn't always mean losing)





	everything I hold dear resides in those eyes

The distance between Washington and New York is approximately 2800 miles. Approximately a 41 hour drive, a 7 hour flight. 

It will be the distance between Neil and Andrew in approximately 2 and a half weeks. 

Normally, the time between drafting and the start of the season is a few months, but there were complications with Neil’s signing. Complications that made it look like he could stay in New York for the year, living in Andrew’s tiny apartment with the cats. It made it look like he wouldn’t have to leave. He’d made his peace with it; he’d even found a happiness in it. 

Sure, it would mean complications with the deal he made. But it would work itself out; the money guarantees it. It would work itself out and Neil could stay with Andrew. 

But now, he’s hanging up the phone with the coach of the Beavers, the pro exy team located in Washington state, 2nd in the country. And he has two and a half weeks before he’s leaving, and he has to pack and get things ready and, god, he has to tell Andrew. That’s what it all comes down to, really. Leaving Andrew. 

He’s fallen into a comfortable life, one he never should have dipped his toe in.   
Nathaniel. Nathaniel Wesninski wouldn’t be here, sitting on a dark leather couch in a loft apartment, an ugly cat purring in his lap. He’d never have such big windows or expensive furniture or someone to come home to. He’d never have let himself be so stupid or get so close. 

King nudges Neil forcefully with his head; he stopped petting him. He resumes the rhythmic motion, grounding himself to the feel of King’s fur beneath his fingers. 

The jingling of the key in the door makes Neil flinch, irritating King, who gives up and moves to sit on one of the pillows with his sleeping counterpart. Neil doesn’t move, frozen in place on the couch, and Andrew doesn’t greet him. Instead, he sets his bag down on the counter. He doesn’t comment on how his game went; the only person who cares is Neil. He’s probably-definitely-waiting for Neil’s inevitable questioning about the outcome, but Neil doesn’t have room for it tonight. Plus, he watched the game on TV, and Andrew knows it. 

Shockingly, he’s not interested in talking about Exy right now. 

Well, not exactly. Talking about the move is talking about Exy.

“Outside?” he asks as soon as Andrew returns from the bedroom, changed into sweats and one of Neil’s long sleeves. Anytime Neil questions him about wearing his clothes, Andrew just makes an offhanded comment about not looking before he grabbed something, but Neil has known him long enough to see the truth behind the lines. Andrew is meticulous, molded by years of sharp edges, no matter how hard he tries to look unpressed. Plus, he knows how comforting a smell can be. He’s lost count of the amount of panic attacks he suppressed by bringing the sleeve of Andrew’s stolen hoodie up to his nose and closing his eyes. 

Andrew pulls a pack of cigarettes from his back, a lighter appearing in his hands with a flick of his wrist, already moving for the door. Neil meets him against the balcony, the black sky swallowing everything beyond the apartments. 

He’s going to miss New York. The city. The wisp of cigarette smoke. Worn hoodies.

He’s going to miss this. Coming home to Andrew and standing on the balcony and sitting on the couches with the cats. This is what Neil wants, as much as he wants Exy, as much as he wants freedom.

They stand side by side, two slight boys under a darkening sky, words building up behind Neil’s lips until he can’t help but let them spill. 

“My contract sold,” Neil says, letting the bomb tip out of his hands, gaze locked on the mountains on the horizon to avoid watching it detonate, should it choose to. 

“And?” Unsurprised, as always, but more than usual. 

Neil’s mouth twitches and he glances at Andrew. 

“You know already? Of course.”

“Nicky can’t keep a secret,” Andrew says.

“I just found out this morning.”

“He kept it for a full few hours, then.”

Neil scans Andrew’s face, searching in vain for some kind of reaction. But Neil knows Andrew, and he knows there will be nothing visible beyond the walls. Not unless Andrew decides to open the gate. 

He just doesn’t know how to ask what happens next. If there is a next.   
He’s not an idiot. He knows that Andrew cares for him as much as he’s capable, and Neil the same. But he doesn’t know whether or not the tether can stretch across the country, or if Andrew even wants it to. If he still considers life with Neil better than the alternative. 

Neil has gotten used to consistency. He has gotten used to stability. He’s become comfortable. His mother is rolling in her grave at the thought, surely, but its true, and Neil doesn’t want to change it. A small, angry voice inside him reminds him he shouldn’t have to. 

But he learned to quiet that voice a long time ago, inside a dingy old car, along dark stretches of highway, with his mother in the driver’s seat. 

It isn’t about deserving better. It isn’t about wanting better. It’s about what you get. And the lot Neil has right now is surely better than the never-ending running. Even if his life is still in the hands of someone else, the leash is long and loose enough not to choke. 

The major choices are not his own, will never be his own. 

“I’m leaving,” he says. 

“Yes, that is what moving consists of,” says Andrew, letting things unravel painfully slowly. 

Neil snaps his gaze away, back to the endless skyscrapers. Andrew puffs out a breath. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” he says after another moment. 

He effectively grabs Neil’s attention. 

“What?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Andrew says, as if daring Neil to argue with him. 

“Neither of us is poor, Neil. Airplanes exist.”

“Says the world’s biggest air travel fan,” Neil says. 

“Just because you’re going to be playing for the Beavers doesn’t mean I wouldn’t blow you,” Andrew says, and Neil is thrown back in time, back when Andrew was still a deadly enigma. 

It is a horrible time to think about how far they’ve come, especially in the face of leaving it all behind. And not because he wants to, but because he has to. He always has to. 

Neil takes the cigarette from Andrew simply for something to do with his hands. He watches the wind carry the smoke out past the edge of the balcony, and he wishes for a moment to go with it, to leave Neil Josten and Andrew Minyard behind where they can’t hurt him. More importantly, where he doesn’t have to leave them. 

Then Andrew speaks again, something Neil was most certainly not expecting him to do. 

“New jersey. New apartment. New city. Those things change. But this,” Andrew’s mouth twitches again, so small and quick anyone who didn’t know him wouldn’t see it, “doesn’t.”

"This." Neil says. 

“Close your mouth. You’ll catch flies,” Andrew says, taking the cigarette back.   
He thinks of words Andrew spat a long time ago. 

I am not your answer and you sure as fuck aren’t mine. 

He isn’t sure if that’s true, anymore. They were parallel lines, back then. They’ve swerved closer, maybe even become one, since. 

Back in Baltimore, Andrew Minyard told Neil Josten he could stay. Only he understood how big of a deal that was. 

Now, Andrew is telling him to go. But going doesn’t mean the same thing anymore; leaving isn’t necessarily synonymous with loss. 

When he steps onto that plane bound for the other side of the country, bound for another ocean, Andrew will be behind him. 

“Yes or no?” he asks. In reply, Andrew lifts his hand. Neil threads his fingers through Andrew’s, lets their twined hands fall between them. 

He makes a silent promise right then, standing in the cold night air, to hold on until he can’t anymore. And long after.


End file.
